Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of Ar­rive Alive Sharon In­gle­field wants to see bet­ter road safe­ty mea­sures tak­en by those in au­thor­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly with an eight per cent in­crease in road fa­tal­i­ties this year com­pared to 2022.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) stat­ed there have been 93 road traf­fic deaths for 2023, com­pared to 86 the pre­vi­ous year.

In­gle­field said she was dis­ap­point­ed with the in­crease and called for bet­ter road sig­nage and light­ing.

“You know, we’re sup­posed to con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for safer roads, safer ve­hi­cles and safer dri­vers. We would like to see mark­ings and sig­nage and light­ing,” the Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent said.

She called for a road safe­ty au­dit, as she be­lieves there are a lot of things that are hap­pen­ing on our roads that could be avoid­ed if the roads are more read­able. She re­it­er­at­ed that sig­nage and light­ing are im­per­a­tive.

“I com­pli­ment them on the col­lapsi­ble poles, I’m see­ing the elec­tri­cal poles that avoid se­ri­ous crash­es. I ap­plaud the Min­is­ter of Util­i­ties for that, as well as the re­cent round­abouts. But the mark­ings need some at­ten­tion, and we need to im­prove the in­fra­struc­ture,” she said.

In­gle­field said while speed­ing was the num­ber one cause of road traf­fic ac­ci­dents (RTAs), pot­holes should al­so be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

“I had to pay $1,800 falling in­to a pot­hole in Mar­aval,” she said.

She ap­plaud­ed the work of the TTPS and the min­istry but said it was a work in progress. In­gle­field called for more pa­trols of the na­tion’s roads.

She said they must be “out there with their speed guns and their breathal­y­sers do­ing more route safe­ty checks.”

TTPS road safe­ty co­or­di­na­tor Sergeant Brent Bat­son said the po­lice di­vi­sions have ramped up an­ti-crime and road polic­ing ini­tia­tives.

He said so far for 2023, the work of the TTPS, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, tran­sit po­lice, li­cens­ing of­fi­cers, and traf­fic war­dens have re­sult­ed in 101,649 fixed penal­ty no­tices be­ing is­sued to er­rant dri­vers.

In the last five years, 598 peo­ple have lost their lives on the na­tion’s road­ways. There were 95 in 2022, 75 in 2021, 96 in 2020, 121 in 2019 and 118 in 2018.